Friendly Tumour posted:Duh. The point is that the Roman state fell apart and was replaced by a systems of fealty and vassalage, something we can refer to as feudalism. gently caress it, call it whatever you bloody want. I'm just pissed that whenever the word is even mentioned deconstructionists spring from the floorboards like flatworms from a peasants bloody rear end in a top hat and start screaming in unison about feudalism not existing and confusing and whatever the gently caress just to be completely pedantic anal retentive gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress gently caress Did a professional historian write a nasty book about one of your past lives or something?
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Jun 27, 2015 17:52
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Friendly Tumour posted:Duh. The point is that the Roman state fell apart and was replaced by a systems of fealty and vassalage, something we can refer to as feudalism. Again: feudalism even as its typically defined was not the state of affairs in the post-Roman world, it was the state of affairs in the late/post-Carolingian world. Feudalism as once understood is an emergent state of affairs through the 900's in to the 1200's as office holding and benefices harden in to hereditary forms, and legal culture develops to support that. You seem to want to talk about the 'Dark Ages', another term professional historians don't like to use, and where things are even more chaotic and mixed. Or not, because themes went on a long way. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 17:53
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For the third time I want to talk about the bloody Theme system and I regret even mentioning feudalism.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:06
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For gently caress's sake man.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:07
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Friendly Tumour posted:For gently caress's sake man. I have literally no idea why you seem to find this so stressful.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:12
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Oh I dunno, deconstructing words to bog down the conversation in pedantic bullshit just gets on my tits a bit.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:19
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Friendly Tumour posted:Duh. The point is that the Roman state fell apart and was replaced by a systems of fealty and vassalage, something we can refer to as feudalism. No, we can't, because it's actually like 20 different things that are only loosely related in having a peasant on the bottom and a king on the top and what's in between varies like hell. Weren't even the same thing in the same area say immediately after the last western emperor gets booted and 500 years later, while the themes over in the east are pretty drat stable for almost a thousand years. I mean I already gave the best comparison possible like a page or so back. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jun 27, 2015 |
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Jun 27, 2015 18:25
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SlothfulCobra posted:The one thing I have against Crash Course History is that they are so anti-great man history and anti-war history that they skipped over Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars, who was probably the single most influential person on modern European history.  It's a good supplement to the outdated, insanely Great Man, military-focused typical school curriculum. As an actual crash course, if approached by someone fairly ignorant of history, it could leave them with some hugely important gaps in their knowledge.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:27
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Guildencrantz posted:military-focused typical school curriculum
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Jun 27, 2015 18:41
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I was never taught about militaries in the slightest in a British school.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:45
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Organizational/social history of militaries was the most interesting thing I never learned about till college.
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Jun 27, 2015 18:46
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I learner there were lots and lots of battles, sometimes these resulted in a new king. gently caress until my mid 20's that was my grasp of British history, now I can supplement it with a good overall grasp of the Roman and immediately post-Roman period was like along with a basic grasp of the Civil War. Previously my knowledge of each consisted of 'it happened, maybe King Arthur?' and 'Cromwell was a oval office' (strictly speaking not learned in school where it consisted of: this will probably be talked about later in your schooling, bye!). Also Friendly Tumor, if you phrase you question as 'how does A compare to B and why was it different in its effects?' then don't get so stressed out about the fact people answer with 'A? There isn't any such thing as A, what do you actually want to compare this to?' This is especially true in a thread where people are into the topic at hand. If you just want an explanation of the Theme system then ask about that. In terms of what the situation developed differently in the East and West, they started with hugely different conditions and situations. At its broadest I'd say that the difference betwen military/political situations was that generally in the West they emerged out of simple de facto situations post conquest or barbarian intrusion in a slow cascade. The Theme system however was explicitly created by the Emperor, it's very basis was that it was a grant of the Emperor/Empire and that each man in it owed pretty direct loyalty to the Emperor, even if the Strategos was their direct commander. Of course this didn't stop different Strategos and Themes from rebelling or participating in rebellion but they generally did so within that estabilished power structure where ultimately they owed their allegiance to the Empire and even if they rebelled generally their aim was to replace the head of that group rather than reject it or declare war on it as tended to happen among rulers in Europe.
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Jun 27, 2015 19:46
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quote:Anyway. How did the theme system avoid being appropriated by individual strategoi in charge of them? Didn't they try to pass them on off to their sons when they died? Well, for one thing, the military leaders weren't large landowners. So even if the job gets passed down, it doesn't come with the huge fuckoff wealth of being a large landowner. Whenever the landowners came to power, they would undermine the system, which usually lead to a military revolt. If the revolt was successful, the strategos that lead it would become emperor. And would usually rebuild the themes at the expense of the landowners. That's how both the Macedonian dynasty and the Kommenei got their start. So it wasn't immune to political fuckery, it's just through luck and the occasional competent emperor or administrator that it managed to lurch from crisis to crisis for a thousand years.
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Jun 27, 2015 20:10
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In what way was the theme system notable from what preceded it, and what was the eastern empire using before it?
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Jun 27, 2015 20:57
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The empire's provincial government had been made much more complex under Diocletian, as part of his system of tetrarchy. Governors reported to vicars, who oversaw several provinces, and they in turn reported to one of four praetorian prefects. By the time the theme system's introduced, the empire's shrunk to the point where such complexity is no longer needed. Each strategos now reports directly to the emperor, and unlike before civil and military authority are brought under his sole jurisdiction (we don't see the two begin to split off again until the time of the Komnenoi, I think). The theme system's good because it provides defense in depth, and this works very well in the rugged terrain of Anatolia against Arab incursions. Beforehand a province under attack had to hunker down until the nearest imperial army arrived. If that was beaten it would take some time for a replacement to arrive. It's problematic in the extent to which it empowers local commanders, giving them a power base they can use to rebel (which is why the themes are broken up into smaller pieces by successive emperors).
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Jun 27, 2015 21:29
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Friendly Tumour posted:Oh I dunno, deconstructing words to bog down the conversation in pedantic bullshit just gets on my tits a bit. For another fun piece of pedantry, why would one expect social relations in the Eastern Empire to follow the same track as those in the West? Feudalism was not some inevitable product of Roman Imperial rule.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:35
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Squalid posted:For another fun piece of pedantry, why would one expect social relations in the Eastern Empire to follow the same track as those in the West? Feudalism was not some inevitable product of Roman Imperial rule. Well the desire to pass down what you consider to be yours to your children is pretty universal.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:39
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Friendly Tumour posted:Well the desire to pass down what you consider to be yours to your children is pretty universal. If this turns into another discussion of gavelkind I'm out.
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Jun 28, 2015 01:55
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the JJ posted:If this turns into another discussion of gavelkind I'm out. the correct solution is filicide
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Jun 28, 2015 01:59
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Squalid posted:For another fun piece of pedantry, why would one expect social relations in the Eastern Empire to follow the same track as those in the West? Feudalism was not some inevitable product of Roman Imperial rule. If you want an exact sort of question out of that, why didn't dynastic succession become firmly established in the later Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire or just Roman Empire depending on who exactly you're talking to) rather than Imperially-appointed strategos? The emperor's power seems to've fluctuated wildly over the life of the Byzantines, and there seems to've been many potential opportunities for local magnates to wrest further power away from Constantinople by pushing for the principles of dynastic succession.
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Jun 28, 2015 04:45
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Macedonian dynasty lasted 200 years, that's pretty good for most medieval families. Granted, it had some pretty hairy moments, but it hung on. Only reason they ran out of heirs was because Michael VII was a lovely father who locked his daughters up until they were in their 40s.
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Jun 28, 2015 05:09
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Friendly Tumour posted:Well the desire to pass down what you consider to be yours to your children is pretty universal. Yes, that is why the Eastern Empire retaining a civil service is so very important. Why is the head of a US state a "governor" and not a "duke"? Because the person does not own the state and can be replaced by the same system that placed them there. The power is due to holding office in a bureaucracy, not ownership.
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Jun 28, 2015 12:24
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How did the shift to an Empire rather than a Republic affect military incompetence in the political elite? In the Republic you have a surprising number of political leaders who are very tactically or strategically competent during campaigns, but you still have a number of big political players taking field armies, not listening to his subordinates, and losing a lot of battles in very stupid ways. The long-lasting damage tended to be minimised (as far as I can see) by the limitations of the year-long campaign and a fierce demand for results back home combined with the staying power of Roman logistics. If Quintus Minimus faffs around too long in Asia Minor or loses an army with a rookie mistake, they replace him (either directly or by not renewing his yearly assignment) and his political career is tarnished. Did this change at all with the shift to an Empire, especially in later years with manpower and materiel shortages? Did the Emperor have more freedom to assign commanders based on competence (like Belisarius, way later on) or was it still heavily politicised?
Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 12:32
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Jazerus posted:Yes, that is why the Eastern Empire retaining a civil service is so very important. Why is the head of a US state a "governor" and not a "duke"? Because the person does not own the state and can be replaced by the same system that placed them there. The power is due to holding office in a bureaucracy, not ownership. Whereas in western political discourse jurisdiction and ownership are extremely fogged up concepts.
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Jun 28, 2015 13:02
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I find it rather amusing that it took nine Emperors before one actually managed to pass on the Empire to his own actual son rather than adopted heir or other relative.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:11
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Munin posted:I find it rather amusing that it took nine Emperors before one actually managed to pass on the Empire to his own actual son rather than adopted heir or other relative. Picking your successors as opposed to being forced to use your retarded son seems better.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:18
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Sure, if you actually pick based on merit rather than picking your sociopathic grand-nephew because you never had a son.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:22
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LingcodKilla posted:Picking your successors as opposed to being forced to use your retarded son seems better. 
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Jun 29, 2015 01:26
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uPen posted:Sure, if you actually pick based on merit rather than picking your sociopathic grand-nephew because you never had a son. If you can't notice that in him before making him regent you deserve to have your line die out. I'd have a much easier time having my nephew die in a hunting accident than my own retarded son.
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Jun 29, 2015 01:31
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Considering plagues, wars and even poorer medical treatment, were people in Middle Ages on average shorter than those in Roman empire?
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Jun 29, 2015 02:09
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What was the transition from Latin to modern Italian like?
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Jun 29, 2015 02:21
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Doctor Malaver posted:Considering plagues, wars and even poorer medical treatment, were people in Middle Ages on average shorter than those in Roman empire? No. Height is mostly genetics and is driven down by malnutrition. Europeans were only unusually short for a fairly short time period during the Industrial Revolution. Peasants ate a pretty good diet and got plenty of exercise, they were generally quite healthy if you didn't have bubonic plague or whatever.
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Jun 29, 2015 02:49
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goose fleet posted:What was the transition from Latin to modern Italian like? Basically, different parts of Italy developed a bunch of different regional dialects, then the modern state of Italy chose the Florentine dialect (the language Dante wrote in) to be the standardized "Italian". Even today a lot of Italians speak both "Italian" and their own local dialect.
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Jun 29, 2015 03:20
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Also on height, Romans weren't tiny as they're sometimes portrayed. Southern Europeans have tended to be shorter than Northern Europeans for quite a while, and they also wanted to enhance the barbarity of the barbarians so they always talked about how huge the Germans or whoever were. They probably were larger but not abnormally so. I don't have the data (I don't know if we have the data, all that cremation makes Roman bodies harder to find) but I suspect Romans and modern Italians are genetically about the same and there's not much average height difference. Maybe a couple inches but nothing significant.
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Jun 29, 2015 03:27
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How did the Romans fare in terms of penis size, though?
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Jun 29, 2015 03:31
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Roman penis size increased over time, as shown by the gradual shift to the spatha instead of the gladius.
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Jun 29, 2015 03:32
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Crystal Geometry posted:Basically, different parts of Italy developed a bunch of different regional dialects, then the modern state of Italy chose the Florentine dialect (the language Dante wrote in) to be the standardized "Italian". Even today a lot of Italians speak both "Italian" and their own local dialect. Even in Ancient times, wasn't Latin a wildly varied and evolving language as well? It's just that most of the stuff written down and preserved by history was by conservative Aristocrats who insisted on maintaining the language exactly as it always had been in the past? Basically the equivalent of some dude (possibly wearing a fedora) walking around today saying,"Thou art a knave and yon missive shall inform the populace ere the sun hath made its descent!"?
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Jun 29, 2015 03:36
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Crystal Geometry posted:Basically, different parts of Italy developed a bunch of different regional dialects, then the modern state of Italy chose the Florentine dialect (the language Dante wrote in) to be the standardized "Italian". Even today a lot of Italians speak both "Italian" and their own local dialect. This is true of most of Europe, of course. I often waste a lot of time on Wikipedia reading about the minority languages and dialects in Europe. The similarities and differences, and supposed reasons for them, are fascinating, to say nothing of the languages themselves or their own histories.
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Jun 29, 2015 03:36
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Grand Fromage posted:No. Height is mostly genetics and is driven down by malnutrition. Europeans were only unusually short for a fairly short time period during the Industrial Revolution. Peasants ate a pretty good diet and got plenty of exercise, they were generally quite healthy if you didn't have bubonic plague or whatever. I thought that Europeans were also short before the plague, and during the Little Ice Age.
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Jun 29, 2015 06:49
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Friendly Tumour posted:Well the desire to pass down what you consider to be yours to your children is universal. Agreed, however there is more than one way to imagine property, and more than one way to provide for children. History does not follow a single course, and differences can arise due to random or chaotic forces even within extremely similar circumstances. Grand Fromage posted:No. Height is mostly genetics and is driven down by malnutrition. Europeans were only unusually short for a fairly short time period during the Industrial Revolution. Peasants ate a pretty good diet and got plenty of exercise, they were generally quite healthy if you didn't have bubonic plague or whatever. I agree with you in substance, but this is evidence of measurable changes in average height over time in post-Roman Europe. For example the Little Ice Age lopped several inches off the top of the average Swede.
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Jun 29, 2015 07:08
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